Merry Christmas

In case I do not have time to blog between now and December 25th, I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. I get both Western (Catholic and Protestant) Christmas and Eastern (Orthodox) Christmas off this year. Well I got them both off last year too, but I was unemployed.

The Accordion Player

For most of the fall I walked past an old Russian accordion player on the way to work. I took to giving him four to five som each time I saw him. He always expressed great appreciation. When the weather got cold I did not see him for many weeks. Finally, yesterday it was quite warm and I saw him again. I gave him 10 som this time. Since I have finished all my work for the semester I figured it was a good way to start my Christmas break.

Election Day

Today they are holding parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan. I predict that President Bakiev's party, Ak Zhol, will win a majority of the seats. But, despite the elections, today looks like any other calm Sunday in Bishkek.

Possibly the coolest present ever (R-E-S-P-E-K-T)

Today was the last day of classes of my first semester of teaching. My final class was my Russian Politics course. I brought some snacks and most of the students showed up despite the class being optional. This was a bit of a surprise since the last class for my Democratization course had only four students show up. My last Political Culture class managed to have an even lower attendance with three students responding to my advertisement of free food. But, the biggest surprise was what the students gave me. They presented me with a shirt bearing the university emblem. Beneath it they had written out CCCP (USSR in Russian) and then vertically spelled out the acronym in Russian as Samyi, Samyi, Super, Respekt. The t in Respekt then intersected with Otto written horizontally at the bottom of the shirt. On the back of the shirt many of the students had written personal messages and thank you notes with their signatures. I spent a long time in the desert looking for "just a little bit."

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T"

Quoted material from A. Franklin

Almost Done

The semester is almost over. I am just waiting for 40 more research papers due tomorrow at 5pm Bishkek time so I can finish calculating final grades. Early this week my students filled out their evaluations of me . Today and tomorrow my classes are optional. My students can show up and hang out with me for a while over some snacks if they want. Or they can use the time to work on their research papers. So far most of my students have taken the second option.

Sunday at the office

Today I came into work to meet a student. While waiting for her I read and marked a draft of a research paper by another student. Now that our meeting is over I am going to delay going over any more research papers until tomorrow.

My bank's new building

This morning I went to my bank's new location around the corner from their old place to deposit a big chunk of my last pay packet. The new building is much larger and built like a fortress. They have metal detectors, armed guards and who knows what else. The actual deposit of money is even done underground behind bullet proof glass. So I think my money should be safe.

New Publication Coming Soon I Hope

I finally got my copy edited proofs for my chapter, "Loss, Retention, and Reacquisition of Social Capital by Special Settlers in the USSR, 1941-1960." It is scheduled to appear in Cynthia Buckley and Blair Ruble (eds.), Going Home? Population Movements and Belonging in Eurasia (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2008). I have a deadline of 28 December 2007 to make the corrections and return the proofs. So I hope the book finally sees print sometime early next year. The book is the result of two workshops I attended at the Kennan Institute in 2004 and 2005.

From One Semester to the Next

Now that I have nearly finished teaching a whole semester here, I think I have a better grasp on how to manage my time next semester. For one thing I know the subjects I am teaching next semester better than the ones I taught this semester. I also know more what to expect out of teaching here. Because I had been falsely led to believe that university teaching was something on the order of brain surgery or rocket science I started this semester with a lot of unjustified anxiety. I am still not sure why hundreds of people on search committees at universities including several here claimed I was "incapable of ever teaching." I found teaching much easier than working as a barrista.

At any rate I think this next semester I can make some time to do some research. Now that I have an institutional position I might even be able to get some funding to carry out this research. But, even if I fail to get any funding, I have a steady income now and should be able to gain access to Soviet era archives here in Bishkek. Previously I had no money and except for the US and Estonia no country would give me permission to look at any of their archival collections. Having removed the boulder of unemployment from my life everything else looks like a cake walk.

Today's Progress

Today I marked up two student drafts of research papers and wrote one letter of recommendation for a third student. I might have done more if I could have gotten the printer in front of me to work. I was too lazy to switch computer terminals and try another printer.

I Spoke Too Soon

It looks like I have more work this weekend than I thought. I have to grade three first drafts of research papers and write two letters of recommendation for students before Monday now. But, I think I can manage to get it all done tomorrow. That way I would at least have Sunday free.

Some Room to Breathe

It looks like I will finally get some free time this weekend. I have finished grading all the little papers I assigned and the big papers are not due until 14 December 2007. I also finished editing a journal article due tomorrow. I sent it off by e-mail today. As usual it took four times as long to get the citations and references into the proper format as it did to actually research and write the article. Or at least it seemed that way. The only work I have to do this weekend is to look over the draft of a literature review written by one of the honors students I am supervising. I do not anticipate that this will require more than a small part of my weekend.

Less Busy Now

I finally finished grading all the dozens upon dozens of late papers I have received since Friday. A full 70% of the grade for all three of my classes has now been calculated. Most of my students did pretty well. A very small number did not. Now I can finally do things other than grade papers all day and night.

Busy

I have been busy putting together grades. Way too many late papers have come to me in the last week. I finally finished grading everything I have for one out of three classes. Next semester I am not going to be nearly so lenient regarding late papers.

Giving Thanks

In case I do not have time to blog between now and Friday here are my thoughts on Thanksgiving. This year I am thankful to finally have a job and be earning an income after many years of unemployment. I applied for this particular job three years in a row. Had AUCA not fired the people preventing me from being hired here I would still be in Arivaca. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways.

Last few weeks of the semester

Right now I am busy trying to finish up the semester. I have three more weeks of class after this one. Two of those will be devoted to student oral reports. The last one will be a wrap up.

Most of my time right now is devoted to trying to get grades in order. I wish I had a grading assistant. Grading papers is taking up way too much of my time.

Correction

Evidently, I erred in referring to Ruth Derksen Siemens as Dr. Siemens. I misconstrued the phrase "Her PhD studies in the Philosophy of Language at the University of Sheffield, UK investigate letters.." to mean that she had already completed the degree. At her request I have reproduced her clarification of this matter below. I am sorry for any confusion my error may have caused.

To Ellwood and other naysayers

It is very important to read carefully before attacking a person’s credibility. Note that the statement in the website states: “Her PhD studies in the Philosophy of Language at the University of Sheffield, UK investigate letters …”. My research is complete and the “Viva” is scheduled for December 4th at the Bakhtin Centre, University of Sheffield , UK . Responders to my website often refer to me as Dr. Ruth Derksen (as do my students) but I correct this in my communication with them.

It is also important to rise above the petty slandering and remember the millions of innocent victims who died in the mines, forests, and industrial sites of Stalin’s Gulag. They deserve our energy, our time and resources. Let’s together demonstrate a higher moral standard.

Ruth Derksen Siemens

Political History of the USSR Syllabus

ICP 255
3 Credits
International and Comparative Politics
American University Central Asia
Spring Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.

Meeting Time: Monday and Wednesday 1:00 pm.

Course Description: This course is an introductory survey course to the political history of the Soviet Union. It will cover the political, economic and social changes in the USSR from the time of its founding until its collapse. Important political events that will be covered include the Bolshevik Revolution, the Civil War, the collectivization of agriculture, the Great Terror, World War II, and the reforms of the Khrushchev era. Special emphasis will be given to the multinational nature of the Soviet Union. In particular the course will pay attention to how different nationalities in the USSR experienced and remembered the events covered in class.


Requirements: The course will consist of assigned readings, lectures, discussions, short writing assignments, and a research paper. For each of the four weeks with supplemental reading assignments, students will be required to submit a 600 to 800 word summary and analysis of the material along with one question for class discussion. These supplemental readings are the four pieces by Long, Viola, Krieger and Khazanov. These papers are all due in class on the Wednesday of the week during which the material is discussed. Students will also have to complete a 1400 to 2000 word research paper on the history of their family in the USSR. Students may substitute a research paper on a different subject in consultation with the instructor. This paper is due the last week of class. All late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. Please turn off all cell phones while in class. I will eject any students carrying on cell phone conversations during class from the room. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.


Readings: The primary text book for this class is Geoffry Hosking’s, The First Socialist Society: The History of the Soviet Union from Within (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). In addition to this book there are four short readings by James Long, Lynne Viola, Viktor Krieger and Anatoly Khazanov that will be provided to the students by the instructor.

Policy on Plagiarism: Plagiarism will result in a zero on the assignment for the first offense. A second offense will result in a grade of F for the course. Please be sure to cite your sources.

Grading:

Four short papers - 60% (15% each)

Written research paper –20% (Due last day of class)

Class participation – 20%


Class Schedule

Week One: Introduction to the course and review of the syllabus.

Week Two: The Bolshevik Revolution.

Chapters 1 and 2 in Hosking, pp. 15-56.

Week Three: War Communism

Chapter 3 in Hosking, pp. 57-92.

Week Four: The 1920-1921 Famine

Read: James W. Long, “The Volga Germans and the Famine of 1921,” Russian Review, Vol. 51, no. 4 (Oct., 1992), pp. 510-525.

Week Four: Nationality Policy during the 1920s

Chapter 4 in Hosking, pp. 93-118.

Week Five: Economic Transformation in the 1930s.

Chapters 5 and 6 in Hosking, pp. 119-182.

Week Six: Destruction of the “Kulaks”

Read: Lynne Viola, “The Other Archipelago: Kulak Deportations to the North in 1930,” Slavic Review, Vol. 60, no. 4 (winter 2001), pp. 730-755.

Week Seven: The Great Terror

Chapter 7 in Hosking, pp. 183-204.

Week Eight: The USSR on the Eve of the Great War

Chapters 8 and 9 in Hosking, pp. 205-260.

Week Nine: World War II

Chapter 10 in Hosking, pp. 263-295.

Week Ten: World War II Continued

Read: Viktor Krieger, “Patriots or Traitors? – The Soviet Government and the ‘German Russians’ After the Attack on the USSR by National Socialist Germany” in Karl Schlogel, ed., Russian-German Special Relations in the Twentieth Century: A Closed Chapter? (New York: Berg Publishers, 2006), pp. 133-163.

Week Eleven: Late Stalinism

Chapter 11 in Hosking, pp. 296-325.

Week Twelve: Khrushchev

Chapter 12 in Hosking, pp. 326-362.

Week Thirteen: The Era of Stagnation

Chapter 13 in Hosking, pp. 363-401.

Week Fourteen: Nationality in the USSR after World War II

Chapter 14 in Hosking, pp. 402-445.

Week Fifteen: Nationality in the USSR after World War II Continued

Read Anatoly Khazanov, “People with Nowhere to Go: The Plight of the Meskhetian Turks,” (chapter 7) in After the USSR: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), pp. 192-210.

Week Sixteen: The End of the Soviet Union

Chapter 15 in Hosking, pp. 446-501.

Week Seventeen: Research paper due and concluding remarks.

Letters from Mennonite Special Settlers

Dr. Ruth Derksen Siemens has put together an impressive web site based upon letters written by the Regher family during the early 1930s. The OGPU (Soviet political police) exiled the Reghers from their home in Ukraine to a special settlement village in the northern Urals in 1931. Despite their punitive internal exile they continued to correspond with family members in Carlyle, Saskatchewan. Incredible as it sounds, hundreds of such letters from Russian-German Mennonites banished to special settlements made it to relatives in Canada during the 1930s. You can visit the web site here. I urge all my readers to go check out her web site. She also has both a book and a film documentary coming out early next year based upon these letters. Kyrgyzstan at one time had a fairly large Mennonite population including Maria Regher who settled here with her surviving children after being freed from the special settlement in the Urals in 1956. She died here in 1976. If not for the work of Dr. Siemens she and her family would have been completely forgotten like millions of other victims of Stalinist repression.

hat tip: Michael Miller

New Publication Finally in Print

In 2003 I wrote an article on the Soviet deportation of whole nationalities for an encyclopedia on European migration. I am not sure when the English language version of this work will be published. The German language version of the book, however, has been publicly available since 7 November 2007 . My article, "Deportierte in der Sowjetunion im und nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg" appears on pages 458 to 463 of the Enzyklopadie Migration In Europa: Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, edited by Klaus J. Bade, Pieter C. Emmer, Leo Lucassen and Jochen Oltmer. The work is published by Ferdinand Schoningh out of Paderborn in cooperation with Wilhelm Fink in Munich. It has been a long time coming, but it looks really good. I am aware by the way that I have left out the umlauts in the German words and names above.